


A Bit of Levity

by ShipperWriter



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Jopper, during season 4, post-season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-24 23:41:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20022940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShipperWriter/pseuds/ShipperWriter
Summary: Joyce doesn’t want to be alone tonight.





	A Bit of Levity

Jim made one final pass down the hallway of the Byers house, making a mental note about the bedroom doors. Jonathan’s was closed and no light shone underneath. Will’s was shut, but he could see a faint glow and a shushed voice about rolling a 13 (whatever that meant) came through the door. 

The last one was open three inches.

He would’ve gone in and given her a kiss on the forehead, but Nancy and Max were staying over in there as well, so he kept on walking down the hallway with a small smile on his face.

The last bedroom door was ajar. He rapped his knuckles lightly on the door.

“Yeah?”

He pushed it open and leaned against the door jam. Joyce was sitting cross legged on the bed, chewing on a pencil as she stared at the book and papers in front of her. She glanced up and returned the smile. “Hey.”

“Hey.” He drummed his fingers against the wood molding, slightly nervous. Why, he really didn’t know. “So, the kids are all tucked in. Jonathan and Steve are bunking together, the rest of the boys are in Will’s room, and the girls are in El’s.”

“Okay.”

He nodded at her. “Okay,” he said before he cocked his head down the hallway towards the stairs. “I’ll leave you to it.”

“Uh, where are you going?” Joyce piped up as he started to close the door.

He raised his eyebrows. “Umm, downstairs.”

“Why?”

“Cause I made up the couch?”

Joyce asked him why again but with her face.

“To sleep?”

She sighed. Jim held his position, waiting for her. They had never really discussed — well, _them_ , after the rescue and everything that had transpired. Life had sort of fallen back into a normal routine.

Well, at least what passed as normal these days in the Hopper and Byers families.

So when she tucked her papers and pencil into the textbook and closed it, Jim wasn’t one hundred percent sure what that meant.

But when she smiled and said, “Come in and shut the door,” the doubt went away.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Hop’s bewildered face was something that Joyce had always considered adorable since the first time she had seen it in a chemistry class at Hawkins High. Along with sharing a smoke between fifth and sixth periods, it had also been one of the reasons sophomore Joyce had developed a crush on senior Jim.

Seeing it now as he stood awkwardly near the now-closed door, thumbs in the pockets of his jeans, it was still just as cute. But with their shared history from the last couple of years hanging over their heads, it didn’t feel so shallow. It felt like a bit of levity amid all the darkness.

And they didn’t know how badly they needed it until this moment. With the recent crisis seemingly over for now, they could finally have a normal moment to themselves.

She put her coursework down on the floor. “Hop. What are you doing?”

“I don’t know. What _are_ we doing?”

Joyce sighed. “Don’t overthink this. Besides, that’s my thing.”

Hop chuckled.

“Look, nothing’s going to happen before we talk things out. There’s a lot at stake.” She shrugged, hugging herself. “I just don’t want to be alone tonight.”

“Okay.”

She pulled back the other side of the blanket. “It gets colder here at night than it does in Hawkins.”

Hop gave her a skeptical look. “You moved three hours away.”

Joyce just shrugged.

Hop walked towards the bed, sitting down on the edge so he could pull his boots off. Joyce leaned forward, an elbow digging into her thigh as she pressed her fist against her mouth. Despite the years that had passed, she found herself feeling as nervous as she did the first time Hop had offered to give her a ride home. They were friends, had plenty of stolen moments under the bleachers with a pack of cigarettes, but she still expected someone to stumble upon them so it didn’t feel so illicit. 

Twenty minutes alone in a car with Hop scared her a little more than midterms. 

She accepted the ride anyways; it was pouring down rain after school so it just made sense. And afterwards, she rode home with him more often than not. (At least, until Lonnie entered the picture.) 

Joyce had no practical reason to ask Hop to stay in her room tonight except for the simple fact that she didn’t want to be without him. 

But considering how quickly he shut the door, he didn’t seem to mind. 

He was halfway through unbuttoning the flannel long sleeved shirt when she asked, “What happens now?”

Hop turned to face her. “I thought we weren’t talking things out tonight.”

“We’re not,” she quickly agreed. “I just - I don’t know. Too many thoughts running though my mind. One of them was bound to escape.”

He smirked. Shrugging out of his shirt, he laid it across the foot of the bed and untucked his undershirt before standing and taking off his belt. 

Joyce slid under the covers as Hop did the same. She turned on her side, still inches away from him, as his head rested against the pillow and he let out a heavy sigh. 

He was quiet for a moment. Then:

“You said it gets colder here, right?”

“Yeah.”

With that, he maneuvered his arm up and around her, pulling her into his side. She laid her head on his shoulder, close enough for him to duck his head and press a kiss to the top of hers. 

“Get some sleep. I’ll be right here.”

 _For when the nightmares start_. It went unspoken, but Joyce knew it was implied. He had been on-call for the nightmares after their first run in with the Mind Flayer, after everything with Will, and Bob... There were times they just sat in silence for the entire night. He had a knack for it. 

But she wasn’t the only one affected anymore. His time in a tiny isolation cell in barren Russia had left him with some unpleasant memories as well, ones that she knew from personal experience were more likely to resurface at night. 

So she wrapped her arm around him and pulled him close to her too. “Right back at you.”


End file.
